To Mend a Broken Memory - [Troy Otto]

Chapter XVI - Part II

As I get out of my van, in the early morning, I hear voices coming from someplace near, so I slowly walk around to see where they are. And I find them behind another van, so I lean on the other side, hidden, and I put on a listening ear. Troy is talking to a couple soldiers. One of them is the same who's been very rude to me in the infirmary, Gregor or something. 

"I want you to find who did this. Someone is screwing us over, and I want to know whom" Troy says with his usual demanding tone.

"Why don't you do it, if you're so interested?" that soldier replies, his tone full of resentment.

"Because that's also your job. Got a problem with that Gregor?" Troy immediately gets cranky, I am sure he's bracing himself to get rude.

"It depends. Are you stalling us?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Troy asks again, from the look I gave now he's facing the other soldier, apparently ready to fight if necessary.

"It means we might know who did it" Gregor's tone doesn't even hide the accusation. It's pretty obvious he's talking about Troy.

"Come here and say that to my face" so I am not the only one Trot provokes. Good to know.

"Makes sense. You already killed Mike after all, haven't you asshole?!" uh oh, this might be my fault. Did I make a mistake by telling them?

"Get out of my sight before I shoot you in the head" and of course Troy gets murderous in these cases. I am already prepared to intervene, I can't let him kill someone like that, even if Gregor's an asshole. I'd feel guilty nonetheless.

"You're only proving me right. Your little brunette friend was telling the truth then. She and her friends are a problem here, a problem you were not able to solve. Perhaps it's time for a change of leadership." Ok, it was good I didn't intervene. But now I have to do something, so I rush away in the opposite direction. Because they're done talking and they're moving. If they put Troy aside, it could become a problem judging from the hate I hear in Gregor's voice towards us. Two minutes later I am already knocking at Nick's door. He opens the door and he's not even surprised. He just leans on it and waits for me to speak.

"Nick, I need to talk to you. You have to help Troy" his eyes open wide. Now he's definitely surprised.

"Oh sure, let me grab my unicorn and my moon sceptre" of course he's not taking me seriously.

"Nick" I scold him.

"Oh my goodness, you're actually serious? Are you of all people asking me to help Troy?" he's still looking at me as if I was crazy. So I explain.

"I overheard him talking to some militia and it turns out some of them believed my Mike story and threatened him to change leadership" at that, he raises an eyebrow.

"You overheard. Were you spying from behind a bush again? Gosh I need to start looking around when I walk"

"I am serious, Nick."

"Wasn't that what you wanted in the first place when you jumped up there Martin Luther King style?" he shrugs. He has a point. It was what I wanted but I didn't foresee this kind of consequences.

"Yes but this soldier said me and my people are a problem with a very angry tone so I don't think it's a good idea for him to guide the soldiers. You're one of them, convince them otherwise" he rubs his temple with his hands and gives me an obvious look. As if what happened was granted.

"I hate to say I told you so but, hey, I did. You dropped the shoe, what am I supposed to do now?"

"I don't know, explain to them the same theory that convinced the others, the version you gave back then. Please, Nick. I don't want those assholes to hurt my people because I did something stupid" he comes outside, lighting a cigarette, and he seems to be thinking, perhaps something came to his mind as a plan.